Threat to new mudfish species

Article appeared in the NZ Herald of 24 October 1997, by Angela Gregory

Kerikeri - Research into the most strange and secretive of New Zealand
native fish has led to the surprise discovery of a new species of the
swamp-dwelling mudfish. It was found in a Northland study of the threatened
mudfish, also known as mud or spring eels, by Landcare Research working
with the Department of Conservation and the University of Waikato.

A Landcare research scientist, Dr Dianne Gleeson, said the mudfish (known
to Maori as hauhau or waikaka) was probably New Zealand's strangest and
most secretive native fish. It could survive drought conditions with
a kind of hybernation, by wriggling into the mud down to 1.5 m.

There
were thought to be three species - the Canterbury, the brown and the
black - but Dr Gleeson said sampling of Northland mudfish had revealed
a new species at Kerikeri and Ngawha to the west. Dr Gleeson said the newly
discovered mudfish was classified as endangered as the two Northland
sites were restricted and under threat. The Department of Conservation
owned the Ngawha site, near hot springs, but it had only a small water
pool with no juveniles.

"Either the fish aren't breeding or they are being consumed for
food." The Kerikeri population was more promising. But the site backed
onto the Kerikeri airport and there was a risk the runway could be extended
as tourism increased.

Dr Gleeson said the new species, which looked quite different from other
mudfish, was as yet unnamed but "spotted mudfish" was
being considered. Mudfish were threatened by habitat destruction. In
Northland this was through peat, kauri gum and log extraction, or fire.